In July 2022, Intel announced that the company was winding down its Optane division, effectively discontinuing the development of 3D XPoint memory that it has been marketing for a long time. Once viewed as a competitive advantage, the support for Optane has been removed from future platforms. However, Intel has announced plans to extend Optane shipments by another quarter amidst additional stock or significant demand from customers buying Optane DIMMs for their enterprises. Initially set to ship the final Optane Persistent Memory 100-series DIMMs on September 30, Intel extends this date by three months to December 29, 2023.

Intel states, "Customers are recommended to secure additional Optane units at the specified 0.44% annualized failure rate (AFR) for safety stock. Intel will make commercially reasonable efforts to support last time order quantities for Intel Optane Persistent Memory 100 Series."

ADLINK Technology Inc., a global leader in edge computing, and a Titanium member of the Intel Partner Alliance, is proud to announce the launch of its latest MVP Series fanless modular computers—the MVP-5200 Compact Modular Industrial Computers and MVP-6200 Expandable Modular Industrial Computers—powered by 12/13th Gen Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3 and Celeron processors. Featuring Intel R680E chipset and supporting up to 65 W, the computers can also incorporate GPU cards in a rugged package suitable for AI inferencing at the Edge, and can be used for but not limited to smart manufacturing, semiconductor equipment, and warehouse applications.

The MVP-5200/MVP-6200 series though expandable remains compact with support for up to 4 PCI/PCIe slots that allow for performance acceleration through GPUs, accelerators, and other expansion cards. Comprehensive modularized options and the ease of configuration can effectively reduce lead times for customers' diverse requirements. In addition, ADLINK also offers a broad range of pre-validated expansion cards, such as GPU, motion, vision, and I/O embedded cards, all can be easily deployed for your industrial applications.

In a bid to prepare its ISV ecosystem for emerging technologies with future processor microarchitectures, Intel periodically releases instruction-set reference guides. The latest of these was leaked to the web, making their first references to the upcoming "Arrow Lake" and "Lunar Lake" client processor microarchitectures. From the looks of it, Intel is planning a massive push into the client AI acceleration space, starting with the upcoming "Meteor Lake" architecture that debuts later this year. The processor is expected to feature hardware acceleration for AI, with the new AI Boost feature.

The company could build on AI Boost with even more capabilities in the subsequent "Arrow Lake" and "Lunar Lake" microarchitectures. Among the instruction sets relevant to AI deep-learning neural net building and training, are AVX VNNI with INT8, AVX VNNI with INT16, AVX-IFMA, and AVX-NE Convert. There are several new security-relevant instructions, including SHA512, SM3, and SM4. "Lunar Lake" will introduce TSE-PBNDKB (total storage encryption). The ISA Reference Guide can be accessed here.

Sparkle Computer and Intel, longstanding Thunderbolt development partner since 2015, have announced a new partnership to launch the SPARKLE Intel Arc Series Graphics Cards. With a wealth of experience producing quality industrial graphics cards, ODM solutions and peripherals, Sparkle is now expanding our reach into the consumer graphics business.

"We value this collaboration and we are fully prepared," says Willie Huang, General Manager of Sparkle Computer Co., LTD. "Sparkle is dedicated to creating a creator-friendly working environment, ranging from industrial graphics, external GPU to docking stations.... As the last piece of the puzzle, Sparkle Intel Arc Graphics, featuring an advanced Xe Media engine and AV1 encoder, has fully completed our product line and fulfilled the requirement of the desktop community"

Intel's Xeon Sapphire Rapids processors have been coated with numerous delays, and today, we learn that the company is stopping shipment of certain SKUs, mostly driven by the discovery of a new bug. After plenty of delays, Sapphire Rapids has been shipping for a few months now. However, SemiAnalysis's Chief Analyst, Dylan Patel, tipped Tom's Hardware that certain SKUs haven't been shipping since June. What this translates into is the additional delays to the 4th generation Xeon Scalable line, which was already in a difficult position. Some estimates claimed that it did 12 steppings, meaning that it took 11 times to perfect the silicon for the mass production run. The impacted CPUs are models with up to 32 cores, based on MCC die. These SKUs represent a huge amount of the total Xeon volume.

Intel's spokesperson published the following statement for Tom's Hardware: "We became aware of an issue on a subset of 4th Generation Intel Xeon Medium Core Count Processors (SPR-MCC) that could interrupt system operation under certain conditions and are actively investigating. This issue was not observed when running commercially available software, and other 4th Generation Intel Xeon processor SKUs (i.e., XCC and HBM) have not exhibited the issue. Out of an abundance of caution, we did temporarily pause some SPR MCC shipments while we gained confidence in the expected firmware mitigation and expect to release remaining shipments shortly."

What's New: As part of a collaboration with Intel and Dell Technologies, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Cambridge Open Zettascale Lab plan to build a "digital twin" of the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) prototype fusion power plant. The UKAEA will utilize the lab's supercomputer based on Intel technologies, including 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, distributed asynchronous object storage (DAOS) and oneAPI tools to streamline the development and delivery of fusion energy to the grid in the 2040s.

"Planning for the commercialization of fusion power requires organizations like UKAEA to utilize extreme amounts of computational resources and artificial intelligence for simulations. These HPC workloads may be performed using a variety of different architectures, which is why open software solutions that optimize performance needs can lend portability to code that isn't available in closed, proprietary systems. Overall, advanced hardware and software can make the journey to commercial fusion power lower risk and accelerated - a key benefit on the path to sustainable energy."—Adam Roe, Intel EMEA HPC technical director

New research from Omdia reveals that the semiconductor market declined in revenue for a fifth straight quarter in the first quarter of 2023. This is the longest recorded period of decline since Omdia began tracking the market in 2002. Revenue in 1Q23 settled at $120.5B, down 9% from 4Q22. The semiconductor market is cyclical, and this prolonged decline follows the upsurge as the market grew to record revenues in each quarter between 4Q20 through 4Q21 following increased demand from the global pandemic.

The memory and MPU market are major areas of the semiconductor market that are contributing to the decline. The MPU market in 1Q23 was $13.1B, just 65% of its size in 1Q22 when it was $20B. The memory market fared worse, with 1Q23 coming in at $19.3B, just 44% of the market in 1Q22 when it was $43.6B. The combined MPU and memory markets declined 19% in 1Q23, dragging the market down to the 9% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) decline.

ASRock Industrial is introducing new choices in industrial motherboards powered by 13th Gen Intel Core Processors (Raptor Lake-S) with up to 24 cores and 32 threads that boost computer-intensive edge performance. They come equipped with Intel W680, Q670, and H610 chipsets, and offer support for up to DDR5-5600 memory modules and PCIe Gen 5, allowing expanded possibilities and seamless integration within industry-specific applications.

By harnessing the power of the 13th Gen Intel Core Processors, they leap up to 1.04x/1.34x/1.25x faster in single-thread, multi-thread, and CPU image classification inference performance, respectively, compared to the preceding 12th Gen Intel Core processors. The new 13th Gen Intel CPU motherboards with DDR5 support, available in Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, and ATX form factors, have been specifically designed to cater to the unique requirements of the Edge AIoT applications in commerce, automation, robot, entertainment, and security industries.

Today, MLCommons published results of its industry AI performance benchmark, MLPerf Training 3.0, in which both the Habana Gaudi2 deep learning accelerator and the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor delivered impressive training results.

"The latest MLPerf results published by MLCommons validates the TCO value Intel Xeon processors and Intel Gaudi deep learning accelerators provide to customers in the area of AI. Xeon's built-in accelerators make it an ideal solution to run volume AI workloads on general-purpose processors, while Gaudi delivers competitive performance for large language models and generative AI. Intel's scalable systems with optimized, easy-to-program open software lowers the barrier for customers and partners to deploy a broad array of AI-based solutions in the data center from the cloud to the intelligent edge." - Sandra Rivera, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center and AI Group

Intel's Birch Stream-AP socket will provide an LGA7529 socket with as many as 7529 pins to power the next generation of CPUs. Today, thanks to Yuuki_Ans on Twitter, we have another set of pictures that highlight the massive scale that these processors offer. We got similar pictures in the past; however, these are more representative of how big the next-generation Xeon processors are. In 2024, Intel plans to split its Xeon lineup into E-core and P-core powered models. However, both CPUs will utilize the same platform to reduce the overall ecosystem's complexity. Thanks to the new pictures, we can see the processor with its heatsink present, with labeling indicating an engineering sample based on little info printed on the metal surface.

Below are the pictures of the Granite Rapids-AP and the LGA7529 socket, along with the specification table. The third image shows current generation Xeon Platinum processor in the LGA7529 socket.

The Intel NUC12 Enthusiast Serpent Canyon is one of the best mini PCs people can find on the market right now. The 2.5L computer is only 1/10th the size of an average desktop PC, but packs a heavier punch than most PCs out there. The mini PC is powered by a beefy Intel Core i7-12700H processor, which employs 14 CPU cores (including 6 performance cores and 8 efficient cores), 20 threads, 24 MB Intel Smart Cache, and a max turbo frequency of 4.7 GHz.

There is also an Intel Arc A770M discrete graphics card, which has whooping 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM, and supports all mainstream media formats. The GPU is augmented by AI and accelerated by Intel Deep Link technology, making it a perfect choice for gamers and video content creators. The mini PC is also superb in terms of connectivity, boasting two Thunderbolt 4, six USB3.2 Type-A, two DisplayPort 2.0, an HDMI 2.1, two SO-DIMM DDR4-3200 MHz RAM slots and 3 interfaces for internal drives, etc.

Intel China has taken to Weibo and Bilibili in a new effort to explain how things will pan out for 14th generation CPU lineups, with emphasis on its new branding and naming conventions for 2023 and beyond. These announcements contain the company's first official acknowledgement of Raptor Lake-U, Raptor Lake-S and Raptor Lake-HX SKUs getting a refresh. Team Blue's branding scheme is set to become even more convoluted with Meteor Lake premiering with "Core Ultra" instead of the old "i" labelling system. The China office's product rundowns indicate that the Raptor Lake Refresh series will be split into Core # and Core i# families, which complicates matters further.

It seems that Raptor Lake-U & H Refresh (mobile) and the entire Meteor Lake lineup will be assuming the new Core # branding scheme, but the latter series will be more performant—hence the adding of Ultra (e.g Ultra Core 5/7/9), so customers can tell the difference between product lines lumped into the same generation! Desktop Raptor Lake-S Refresh and high-end mobile Raptor Lake-HX Refresh processors will retain the company's traditional "Core i" naming convention, this will eventually be retired with the 14th gen family.

Intel late Thursday released the Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4502 WHQL. The drivers address a major issue that caused the iTunes Windows app to crash during launch. It also addresses a blank screen error noticed in some apps that use WebView2 embedded content. These aside, the the company identified new issues with GPU hardware acceleration for Premiere Pro, errors with Topaz Video AI, and crash with F1 23 on certain XeSS presets. There are no new game optimizations with this release.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Driver 101.4502 WHQL

What's New: The Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory is now fully equipped with all 10,624 compute blades, boasting 63,744 Intel Data Center GPU Max Series and 21,248 Intel Xeon CPU Max Series processors. "Aurora is the first deployment of Intel's Max Series GPU, the biggest Xeon Max CPU-based system, and the largest GPU cluster in the world. We're proud to be part of this historic system and excited for the groundbreaking AI, science and engineering Aurora will enable."—Jeff McVeigh, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Super Compute Group

What Aurora Is: A collaboration of Intel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and the Department of Energy (DOE), the Aurora supercomputer is designed to unlock the potential of the three pillars of high performance computing (HPC): simulations, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) on an extremely large scale. The system incorporates more than 1,024 storage nodes (using DAOS, Intel's distributed asynchronous object storage), providing 220 terabytes (TB) of capacity at 31TBs of total bandwidth, and leverages the HPE Slingshot high-performance fabric. Later this year, Aurora is expected to be the world's first supercomputer to achieve a theoretical peak performance of more than 2 exaflops (an exaflop is 1018 or a billion billion operations per second) when it enters the TOP 500 list.

Intel Graphics has released Arc GPU and Iris Xe Graphics Drivers version 101.4502 WHQL. There are no gaming highlights or brand new Game On Driver support included in this release, according to the notes. An Arc-related iTunes application crash (upon launch) has been fixed, as well as blank screen and error messages encountered in Microsoft Edge's WebView2. There are plenty of "Known Issues" listed this time—Intel and EA Sports are looking into a problem where adjustments to XeSS presets cause crashes in F1 2023. Corruption in Game Capture mode for Dota 2 (via XSplit Broadcaster) has been noted. Media playback and encoding with some versions of Adobe Premiere Pro cannot utilize GPU hardware acceleration.

There are also various in-game issues - for owners of Intel Core Processors - logged for these titles: Total War: Warhammer III (DX11), Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 (DX12), Conqueror's Blade (DX12) and A Plague Tale: Requiem. The Arc Control Performance Tuning app is still in Beta, so expect to encounter some inconsistencies when using it. Intel and Cooler Master have partnered up on the continued development of Arc's RGB Controller software—it is custom designed "to allow users to harness 90 individually addressable LEDs on Intel Arc A770 Graphics Limited Edition cards."

DOWNLOAD: Intel GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4502 WHQL

Intel issued a product change notification (PCN), announcing the discontinuation of the reference-design Arc A770 16 GB Limited Edition graphics card. The product is now marked end-of-life (EOL) from Intel's end. What this means is that retailers cannot order more of it from Intel. The Arc A770 has 8 GB as its standard video memory size, and in its reference spec, uses 8 GB of 16 Gbps-rated GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus. The first-party A770 Limited Edition card comes with 16 GB of faster 17.5 Gbps memory. Memory aside, both the A770 Limited Edition, and custom-design A770 graphics cards have the same GPU core-configuration.

TrendForce reports that explosive growth in generative AI applications like chatbots has spurred significant expansion in AI server development in 2023. Major CSPs including Microsoft, Google, AWS, as well as Chinese enterprises like Baidu and ByteDance, have invested heavily in high-end AI servers to continuously train and optimize their AI models. This reliance on high-end AI servers necessitates the use of high-end AI chips, which in turn will not only drive up demand for HBM during 2023~2024, but is also expected to boost growth in advanced packaging capacity by 30~40% in 2024.

TrendForce highlights that to augment the computational efficiency of AI servers and enhance memory transmission bandwidth, leading AI chip makers such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have opted to incorporate HBM. Presently, Nvidia's A100 and H100 chips each boast up to 80 GB of HBM2e and HBM3. In its latest integrated CPU and GPU, the Grace Hopper Superchip, Nvidia expanded a single chip's HBM capacity by 20%, hitting a mark of 96 GB. AMD's MI300 also uses HBM3, with the MI300A capacity remaining at 128 GB like its predecessor, while the more advanced MI300X has ramped up to 192 GB, marking a 50% increase. Google is expected to broaden its partnership with Broadcom in late 2023 to produce the AISC AI accelerator chip TPU, which will also incorporate HBM memory, in order to extend AI infrastructure.

Intel Corporation today announced that it has agreed to sell an approximately 20% stake in its IMS Nanofabrication GmbH ("IMS") business to Bain Capital Special Situations ("Bain Capital"), in a transaction that values IMS at approximately $4.3 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023. IMS will operate as a standalone subsidiary and will continue to be led by CEO Dr. Elmar Platzgummer.

Since inventing multi e-beam technology and introducing the first commercial multi-beam mask writer in 2015, Vienna, Austria-based IMS has been an industry leader in multi-beam mask writing for advanced technology nodes. Intel initially invested in IMS in 2009 and ultimately acquired the business in 2015. Since the acquisition, IMS has delivered a significant return on investment to Intel while growing its workforce and production capacity by four times and delivering three additional product generations.

Intel Labs, in collaboration with Blockade Labs, has introduced Latent Diffusion Model for 3D (LDM3D), a novel diffusion model that uses generative AI to create realistic 3D visual content. LDM3D is the industry's first model to generate a depth map using the diffusion process to create 3D images with 360-degree views that are vivid and immersive. LDM3D has the potential to revolutionize content creation, metaverse applications and digital experiences, transforming a wide range of industries, from entertainment and gaming to architecture and design.

"Generative AI technology aims to further augment and enhance human creativity and save time. However, most of today's generative AI models are limited to generating 2D images and only very few can generate 3D images from text prompts. Unlike existing latent stable diffusion models, LDM3D allows users to generate an image and a depth map from a given text prompt using almost the same number of parameters. It provides more accurate relative depth for each pixel in an image compared to standard post-processing methods for depth estimation and saves developers significant time to develop scenes," said Vasudev Lal, AI/ML research scientist, Intel Labs.

Momomo_us posted on Twitter about their finding of a BIOS firmware update for an Intel chipset motherboard from AsRock, others soon pointed out that ASUS had quietly revised a higher-end model as well. Both boards share the same socket platform - LGA 1700 - and currently support Team Blue's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPU series, but new details presented on pages for the ROG Maximus Z790 APEX and B760M PG Sonic WiFi suggests that these models are pre-prepared for the (still heavily rumored) launch of Raptor Lake Refresh. The changelogs for their respective BIOS updates mention "compatibility for the next-gen" and "support for next-generation" processors. TPU community member, Nater, has pointed out that his ASUS ProArt Z790-CREATOR WIFI board is also eligible for 14th gen support.

Leaks suggest that the Intel 14th Gen Core lineup is expected to launch around October time this year. Raptor Lake Refresh is likely going to serve as a sort of interim release, since insiders think that desktop Meteor Lake-S SKUs are no longer on the menu, and a full-fledged next-gen upgrade - Arrow Lake-S - is not due until Q4 2024 or Q1 2025. Not much is known about how much more performant the RPL refresh will be when compared to the existing range, but more leaks are expected in the coming months. Mobile Meteor Lake examples have been spotted in the wild recently, in official and less official capacities, so keep your eyes peeled.

Intel and the German federal government have signed a revised letter of intent for Intel's planned leading-edge wafer fabrication site in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt state in Germany. The agreement encompasses Intel's expanded investment in the site, now expected to be more than 30 billion euros for two first-of-a-kind semiconductor facilities (also known as "fabs") in Europe, along with increased government support that includes incentives, reflecting the expanded scope and change in economic conditions since the site was first announced.

Intel acquired the land for the project in November 2022, and the first facility is expected to enter production in four to five years following the European Commission's approval of the incentive package. Given the current timeline and scale of the investment, Intel plans to deploy more advanced Angstrom-era technology in the facilities than originally envisioned. The Magdeburg site will serve Intel products and Intel Foundry Services customers.

Chinese tech tipster Enthusiast Citizen (ECSM) has posted on Bilibili about future Intel product refreshes with a rough timeline spanning from late to 2023 to early 2024. We have been hearing a lot lately about Team Blue's Raptor Lake Refresh, with reports from this week suggesting that this lineup will be the last to sport Team Blue's traditional naming scheme—as 14th Gen Core. ECSM claims that Raptor Lake Refresh-K SKUs are due for launch this October, and non-K units will follow them a month or two later. Team Blue will likely be happy to keep LGA 1700 and 1800 sockets alive for another generation.

ECSM also brings up seemingly new information with an alleged Sapphire Rapids Refresh lined up for early 2024—suggesting that updated HEDT Xeon W2500 and W3500 series processors are incoming. The Intel W790 chipset should be able to run this rumored replacement lineup. ECSM's proposed product roadmap also presents wholly new product ranges including Meteor Lake offerings, albeit with desktop MTL-S SKUs cancelled—mobile-oriented Meteor Lake-H seems to be alive and well with an alleged Q4 2023 launch window. Finally Arrow Lake-S is predicted to launch in the final quarter of 2024 or early 2025—so we will likely have to wait another year and a half for upgraded Intel mainstream desktop SKUs.

Intel has been planning to build its next-generation semiconductor manufacturing plant in Germany for a long time. Today, we have more information thanks to the Handelsblatt business and financial newspaper. According to the Handelsblatt, Intel is in talks with the German government to get as much as 9.9 billion Euros in state subsidies, a target price much higher than the previously agreed 6.8 billion Euros. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck has been reportedly working intensively to get the amount of state aid for Intel to be this high. Intel's CEO Patrick Gelsinger is supposed to seal the deal on Monday when he will sign the agreement in the Chancellery.

As reported, the location of the next-generation facility will be Saxony-Anhalt, with the more precise location to be known on Monday. Also, we expect to hear what manufacturing node will the upcoming facility produce at the beginning.

Intel today announced that it has selected an area near Wrocław, Poland, as the site of a new cutting-edge semiconductor assembly and test facility. This facility will help meet critical demand for assembly and test capacity that Intel anticipates by 2027. Intel expects to invest up to $4.6 billion in the facility, which will have the capacity to expand. When completed, the facility will support approximately 2,000 Intel employees. The construction of the facility is also expected to create several thousand more jobs, in addition to eventual hiring by suppliers. Design and planning for the facility will begin immediately, with construction to commence pending European Commission approval.

Intel's planned investment in Poland, combined with its existing wafer fabrication facility in Leixlip, Ireland, and its planned wafer fabrication facility in Magdeburg, Germany, will help create a first-of-its-kind end-to-end leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing value chain in Europe. It will also serve as a catalyst for additional ecosystem investments and innovation in Poland and across the European Union.

Dynabook Americas, Inc., a leading provider of professional-grade laptops, today introduced its refreshed ultralight Portégé X30L-K which includes the new hybrid-architecture 13th Gen Intel Core P-Series 28 W processors. Weighing a mere 904 grams1, this professional grade laptop is configurable with 14 core CPUs, up to 32 GB of LPDDR5 memory, ultra-fast SSD, Wi-Fi 6E and choice of a vivid IGZO or multitouch 13.3-inch displays driven by Intel Iris Xe graphics, the Portégé X30L-K delivers uncompromising performance all day long.

The Portégé X30L-K comes standard with Windows 11 Pro to provide enhanced productivity features that deliver users a more personalized and intuitive user experience than previous generations of the operating system. The Portégé X30L-K is among the most secure laptops in the world and meets Microsoft's strict Secured-core PC requirements and addresses the security and manageability challenges posed by the accelerated shift towards flexible working patterns.